Goodbye skin

I was born out of alcohol

and from it too

and now I drink to my parents

and the drinks they gave me

that made me grow up

only to drink something

better than milk,

unless the milk is combined

with brandy –

a slurry that

is as spoiled

as a boy who is

nursed by his mother

while still in their 20s

and who knows

there is nothing there

except goodbye skin

and the wretched gulp

before it

and after too

*

Don’t let me be drunk yet

because I haven’t

thought what I wanted to do

when I got here

and now that I am

I feel as though

I have

in the same way

a flower blooms

before the bees

and then dies

while the bee still lives

only to fly from place to place

with nowhere to go

but away from all

and whatever is left

in the

next buried coffin

of spring